The China Mail - Ballerini pounces for Giro win as sprint favourites crash

As sprinters, jockeying for position for the final run to the line, went tumbling in a series of crashes, Ballerini and Jasper Stuyven emerged upright and alone.

The pair surged for line and the XDS Astana man held off the Belgian Soudal Quick-Step rider.

"When we arrived at the last corner, I saw the first guys had crashed," said Ballerini.

"I just exited from the corner and I heard on the radio 'Go! Go! Go! To the finish! To the finish! There's a gap'.

"I was just hoping the line was coming really fast and I made it. I'm really happy," he added.

It was the 31-year-old Italian's first Grand Tour stage victory.

"I was hoping to win one stage on the Giro but it was not the plan today," he said, adding he was at the front to lead out Astana sprinter Matteo Malucelli.

"I was trying to do the maximum for him.

"In cycling there is always some problems and when you don't expect the results the win comes."

At the end of a rare flat stage, the sprinters had been eyeing their chances but also the clouds, afraid more rain would turn the cobbled finish into a potential repeat of the carnage last year's wet and chaotic sixth stage, also into Naples, when racing was neutralised for 20 kilometres after a mass crash 70km from the end.

While the rain largely held off, the the cobbles on the final corner were still slick from an earlier shower.

"It was really slippery," said Dutch sprinter Dylan Groenewegen, who went down when perfectly placed. "It's just bad luck."

After a draining start to the Giro and with a tough weekend ahead, the peloton settled for an easy day in 142km run up the Tyrrhenian coast from Paestum.

The pack rolled through the stage in cool and mostly dry conditions untroubled by any sustained breakaways, reaching the finish more than 35 minutes after the arrival time predicted by race organisers.

Race favourite Jonas Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a bike team adopted an unusual strategy, rolling along at the back of the peloton, preferring to minimise the danger of becoming tangled in mass crashes, at the risk of being held up if one occurred and the pack split.

Portuguese rider Eulalio, who became the first rider from the Bahrain Victorious to lead the Giro and the first with all five vowels in his family name to lead any major tour when he finished second on Wednesday despite crashing in the final kilometres, remained 2 minutes 51 seconds ahead of Spaniard Igor Arrieta, his breakaway companion the day before.

Friday's stage is a 244 kilometre run starting in Formia and ending with an infamous 7km climb to the Apennine peak of Blockhaus.

It will offer Vingegaard, who is 6min 22sec off the lead, a chance make a move on Eulalio, himself a specialist climber.

F.Jackson--ThChM